Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Uninsurable Australia



Last month The Guardian released an interactive map which explored how Australia will be affected by future climate change. If you enter a postcode or click on the How the climate crisis will affect you interactive map you can see how your region's temperatures, rainfall, sea levels and fire risk will be affected by future climate change.

One expensive result of this changing climate is likely to be a hike in insurance premiums. The company Climate Risk believes that around 5% of properties in Australia will become uninsurable on current global heating projections. Thousands of other homes will see their insurance premiums double or triple in size.

ABC News has taken this data from Climate Risk to visualize where in Australia insurance premiums are likely to rise and by how much. Extreme Weather Red Zones includes a number of maps which show the areas in Australia's major cities which will see the highest rises in insurance premiums. The article also includes a large map of Australia which is colored by the percentage of uninsurable properties there will be in each suburb by the year 2100. As you scroll through the ABC News report this large map zooms in on individual cities to explore in closer detail the projected insurance costs. For example, the map pans and zooms to highlight the areas of Sydney which will likely become uninsurable in the future (these will be concentrated near the Georges, Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers).

ABC New's 'Extreme Weather Red Zones' also includes a tool which allows you to view the potential insurance situation in any Australian suburb. If you enter the name of your suburb into this tool then you can view the percentage of properties in the suburb which will become uninsurable by 2050 and by 2100. The tool also tells you how much your insurance premiums are likely to rise by and the premiums you will most likely have to pay.

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